Things That Don’t Matter Do

Have you ever found the perfect potato chip in the worst looking bag? Or the best tasting chocolates in a plain, boring container? Most of the time, packaging and marketing decisions are made by someone tucked away somewhere neatly within the confines of a grey and felted cubicle who thought to himself “this detail doesn’t matter.”

Little things do matter. In fact, sometimes, they matter as much or more than the things themselves. Take bottled water. There isn’t a huge difference between water from Norway and water from New York. They’re both water. But, they come in different bottles with different stories and different logos and little things that make one feel more attractive to a consumer.

Think about it. For $1-$2, would you buy a bottle labeled “Spring Water” with no story behind it, nothing special about the bottle, and little to offer besides the promise of water? Or, would you buy the bottle that came from an ancient spring deep below the surface of the earth with water that claims to be the purest on the planet and comes with its very own attractive bottle?

In a world where lots of people are ready and willing to make the same thing, the details start to matter a lot more than they used to. Apple didn’t turn itself around by ignoring the details. It embraced them and made them their strongest assets. If you look at anything in Apple’s product arsenal, the attention to detail shows. From the packaging to the people to the products themselves, it’s all there.

So, the question is, what details are you missing? 

Something small can mean the difference between success and failure and, success, after all, happens one step at a time.